Dreaming Awake

Dreamt again last night that my family was together. My parents divorced back in 1988, but for some reason last night we were attempting to be civil for the holidays. I kept raising issues I had with the holiday, but mother kept trying to silence me in the name of harmony. We finally decided to split up and do our holiday shopping for each other, but my dad circled back.

"But you can't. You're dead." It was then I realized I had become lucid. And I didn't mean it as caustically as it probably sounds. In the mecurial and multifaceted language of dream-speak, I said-intended "You're part of my mind and my memories. 'You' can't tell me anything I don't already know. I think he understood.

And I think that's it, really. The dream was basically interrupted by me telling myself that I'm on my own. My father was the only reliable advisor among my parents. My mother was physically (and financially) reliable in the way my father couldn't be. So, between them, I had one 'reliable' parent the first 8-10 years of my life. And now, I'm grown. I basically told myself to stop bullshitting and acknowledge that I'm making my own decisions, and for better or worse, every (mis)step I make is my own. I can take the lessons (memories) of my parents to inform my decisions, but ultimately it's up to me to evaluate each step I'm taking, to take it mindfully, and to learn from the missteps and mistakes.

This is, of course, nothing new to me. Just a different presentation medium.

I need to let go of my mother's perfectionism, and my father's escapism. I need to stop viewing myself through them, as a lens. If I'm going to fuck up, I'm going to do it *my* way.